Carolina Basketball is in a really weird position right now, one that is familiar to what the football program went through. When UNC decided to hire Bill Belichick, there was a lot of excitement about who the man was mixed with a lot of question about what he could be at the college level. We all know what happened during the 2025 season, and so the concerns surrounding Belichick and his staff were proven to be valid. Could that all turnaround this season? Perhaps, but for me personally, I’m not
holding my breath.
Then there is Michael Malone — the former Denver Nuggets head coach that led the franchise to their first ever NBA Championship was hired to replace Hubert Davis. This was objectively a good hire for a few reasons: high profile college head coaches had tons of money thrown at them to not jump to UNC, Dusty May ended up running off to the NBA anyway, and Billy Donovan ended up as as lead assistant for the San Antonio Spurs. That isn’t to say that Michael Malone was the best option by default, but it’s worth stating that the hire was in stark contrast to what happened with the football team — there were plenty of quality candidates that UNC could’ve hired, but they were ignored for the guy that has become more trouble than he’s really worth.
But Malone is as qualified as anybody that UNC considered for the job. He is a tough as nails guy that cares for his players, he is huge on development, and he has a hunger for winning that is desperately needed if they are going to be the head coach for one of the best programs in the country. After he was hired, he put together arguably one of the most intriguing rosters UNC has put together in the NIL/transfer portal era. Matt Able, Terrence Brown, and Neoklis Avdalas are all really good pickups from the transfer portal and Maximo Adams is one of the better incoming freshman in the country. Finally, Alexandros Samodurov and Sayon Keita both have the potential to be impact players. So then, why is national media not so high on this team?
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: there are a handful of teams that have been good over the last few years, and it is probably hard to bet against them. Florida, that team in Durham, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, UConn, and Arkansas are just a few examples of teams that have been consistently good over the last 2-3 years. There are more teams that can be named, but the theme inESPN’s way-too-early Top 25 is that they trust teams with really good coaches that have proven they know how to work the portal and recruit. Michael Malone has been around for 10 seconds in comparison, so the body of work just isn’t there.
But what if the issue is deeper than that? What if there is a large population of people looking at Michael Malone as if he is Bill Belichick’s long lost twin? There shouldn’t be any doubt that Malone can coach, and his ability to construct his Year 1 roster was much better than Belichick’s. But my gut still tells me that between Belichick’s failures coupled with everyone still shaking off the Hubert Davis era, everyone is underrating Malone going into the 2026-27 season. Do I think he will take this team to the Final Four? It would be a surprise if they pulled it off, but the chances of that happening are higher than the football team finishing above .500 this year. So it’s interesting that there is so much reservation from the outside when it comes to putting faith behind Malone.
But what do you think? Do you think Bill Belichick’s stench is on Michael Malone by proxy? Or is everyone cautious because they have very real concerns about Michael Malone coaching in college again? Let us know in the comments below.
